After having some time to think about this I think one of my main difficulties is the one you addressed, the fact that is based so heavily on mythology/legends from other books. I don't necessarily believe or even like the idea that everything would have to be "copied" in some form from other mythologies.

But as you said you already knew and addressed this and obviously don't consider it a valid objection and I don't want to fight about this so lets just ignore it.

I will say one thing that occurred to me, a question unrelated to the mythology problem.

Given how skilled Gawyn has become with the sword, it seems unlikely to me that Rand could beat him that way. Not with one hand and his cripplings wounds and so on. He even states in TGS that he will have to retrain himself not to rely on the sword but rather on the OP for this reason. So basically I don't think Rand could even go for the mutual-kill option.

You make the argument at Dragonmount that this is not a problem and quote Lan in NS about how "he thought I was finished, with only one arm. He never understood. You surrender after you're dead."

I got the impression here that what you mean is that Gawyn would basically deal a mortal blow to Rand and think him finished and turn his back or something like that, only to have Rand surprise him by striking back and killing Gawyn only to die himself shortly afterwards.

I was just kinda wondering, why would Rand do this? I mean given everything he knows, would it not make much more sense to let Gawyn live in the hopes that Cadsuane or Nynaeve or even Jahar could possibly undo his death with Balefire. If he were to kill Gawyn he would remove this possibility. Seems much more sense to me that if Rand had been fatally wounded, he would be smart enough to hope on balefire to restore him. Basically, to have someone do to him, what he did to Mat. Mat who also "died" in Caemlyn even.